


EGS FlashFic Week 2020 - MeliHaber/Hat entries

by MeliandreHaberdasher



Category: El Goonish Shive
Genre: Car Ride, Dead Grandma, EGS Flashfic Week 2020, Future Makeover, Other, Transformation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:52:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26275177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeliandreHaberdasher/pseuds/MeliandreHaberdasher
Summary: Another year, another ZeeMcZed Flash Fic Week - These will contain the one shots relating to this fic week, alongside the prompt rolls.To paraphrase John Cena, these fics will be posted without explanation, for your interpretation. Enjoy.
Relationships: Ashley/Elliot Dunkel, Catalina Bobcat/Rhoda, Luke/Justin Tolkiberry
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	1. The Snark Knight

Rolls: 

1 - Elliot  
14 - Liz

Being an experimental subject for Tedd

* * *

Liz had an entire afternoon of moping and general anger at the world planned, but her friend’s safety came first. If Ashley was going to be part of this motley crew of ‘wizards’, or at least getting training from Tedd of all people, Liz would make sure it’s at least safe for her.

Which is partially why she’d been pulling Elliot’s ear about the idea since Ashley spoke to her about this whole ‘wizard’ thing. Liz, a natural skeptic, did not believe her, but a simple showcase of Kevin’s snark and him floating (as well as makeshift tests) convinced her at that at least Ashley’s story stuck. While she could have intimidated Tedd into not harming Ashley, she figured that Ashley’s boyfriend was a better target for her nagging as she already knew he could not lie to save his life.

“So, what’s this whole teaching her to be a wizard going to entail anyway?” Liz had her hands in her hoodie’s pockets while they were walking to Tedd’s house, Ellioiiiiinet not wanting to give a lift just to prepare her for the sights within.

“We figured it’d be easier to show you than just tell you about it. Ashley has some family thing going on, and we’re all going to be busy in the coming days, so… now’s the time.”

“Fiiiiine, but it better be quick.” Elliot nodded before they turned up at Tedd’s house, giving a knock on the door, willingly ignoring the doorbell. Liz already had questions about this, but before she could ask them, what clearly looked like Tedd yet… different answered the door.

“Oh, hey! I wasn’t expecting you this early.” Tedd had a genuine smile – he figured Liz, for all her antiestablishment, would not really care about his gender presentation.

“Guys, I don’t know what you heard about me, but if this is the crossdressing hour, I’m out.”

This deflated the mood quite fast. Tedd blinked twice – she’d not revert for that kind of snarky comment, but she wondered if it was out of spite or if it’s because she really wanted to assert her current femininity. It was Elliot who spoke.

“Actually, Tedd’s genderfluid, so she’s-” Liz interrupted him.

“Oh. Yeah that makes sense. Sorry about that – You stick it to the gender binary establishment, Tedd.” Both Tedd and Elliot looked at each other. Surely she couldn’t have accepted it that easily… Although, with how observant she is, there is a high chance that she had sensed something different about Tedd when she was female at school.

“Anyway, we’re here to show you all the stuff we’re doing to ensure everyone’s experimentation and education is as safe as can be, so let’s get to it.” Tedd stated while Elliot nodded, trying to edge Liz inside.

Inside was a lot more mundane than what Liz was expecting – Hell, this house was so ordinary she felt her sense of rebellion activate instinctively as she shrugged her shoulder against a picture frame, making it uneven. Still, she went along with the other two if only to be assured that her friend would be safe and secure.

Of course, that’s when Tedd came by with what seemed to be a 1970’s sci-fi laser gun. At this point, Liz thought these two were taking the piss about her, and her scowl pierced Elliot’s density, allowing him to start an explanation.

“That’s just something we’ll need to ensure it’s safe and secure.” A woefully inadequate explanation – Tedd caught the fumble, however.

“What he means is that this gun, so to speak, allows us to store the original form of someone in case something happens – Let’s say you can’t dismiss an enchantment that turns you into a 4 foot tall teddy bear, we’ll be able to at least overwrite it with this.” Liz was incredulous – Surely that wasn’t a thing that would happen, right? And if so, she needed to clobber these two nerds and get Ashley to stop.

“Tedd, I think you should start with me to show it’s safe.” Elliot put a hand on Tedd’s shoulder in support.

“But you don’t...”

“Maybe, but we’re not doing this for me.” Tedd thought about it for a second and nodded, before setting the gun to storage, aiming it at Elliot, and firing. A tiny beam enveloped Elliot, and then vanished as though nothing had happened. She then handed the gun over to Elliot.

“Okay, now to verify that it works, set it to transform, and aim at me.” Tedd could stand being a clone of Elliot for a few seconds to convince Liz that no, they were not joking. Elliot did as instructed, and as Liz was about to create an outburst, she saw the meek, bony Tedd, even as a girl, transform into the hunky Elliot. For once in Tedd’s experiments, this did not awaken anything sexual in a bystander. However, Liz couldn’t believe her eyes. She had to touch them. Both of them. She had to verify that what she saw wasn’t a fluke.

“Can… can I touch you? I need to see for myself.” Tedd acquiesced, and Liz’s touches were far from gentle. Pinches on the abs, a firm grasp on the arm on both, until she relented.

“That’s incredible. That explains why I thought you looked more feminine on some days, but I never thought...”

“Yep, that’s magic.” Liz wasn’t sure which Elliot was which at this point. Fortunately for her, Tedd instructed Elliot to fire at him with Storage form 1, which restored him to his male self.

“Oh, yeah, I put that in before I swapped genders. That’s the spell I can cast innately. Usually, those are extremely fitting for the person, but sometimes there’s other factors that come into play.” Liz only had one question on her mind.

“…what’s Ashley’s spell?”

Unsure how to answer the question, both figured the truth was key here.

“We don’t actually know. She bears the distinction of being a Wizard, meaning she can learn others’ spells, but that doesn’t mean she has any herself at the moment.” Tedd explained, “Part of her education will be to figure out if she does have one, and also how to use and experiment with magic responsibly.”

Liz was too stunned to understand, or rather she understood too much. She understood how Elliot could turn into Cheerleadra and no one else had figured it out even with that floating guy yelling out his name at the mall. She understood why all of this had to be kept a secret. She even had an inkling as to what Tedd’s dad did since Elliot brought up the fact that he was a sort of government authority. With these two nerds, Ashley was as safe as she could be. Hell, she was as safe as she could be under the circumstances.

“So, are we ready to experiment with magic!?” shouted Tedd, a bit too excited.

Liz only had one answer.

“Fuck yeah.”


	2. Waiting for Crystelle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catalina and Sarah are stuck in an elevator.

Rolls:

6 - Sarah  
13 – Catalina

Stuck in an elevator

* * *

With a loud, grinding noise, uncharacteristic of a well-maintained elevator, Sarah and Catalina found themselves with no lights, no upwards movement signifying that their interview for the feminist club at Moperville North High was likely suspended, and neither of them with the cellphone coverage penetration necessary to break through this predicament.

They were thus stuck trying to press the help and alarm buttons to no avail.

“Great, just great. If at least we could tell Crystelle we’re going to be late...” Sarah was already fretting about missing this opportunity. While being in the feminist club was mainly done as a favor to her friend Susan, who took it seriously, she sure loved it when such an opportunity came knocking. Having a meeting with one of the most vocal feminist artists at the local level was not something she scoffed at.

Catalina mainly went along because it just so happened that said artist was her second cousin, and she hadn’t seen her in quite some time.

“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind! Hell she’s probably not even there and would have made us wait if she’s anythin’ like I remember.” Catalina smiled, allowing her prominent canines to appear. Ever since she got access to magic, her dentition made a lot more sense. She even wondered if that wasn’t her magic manifesting prematurely, but soon buried the thought behind surface hatred of jackass, inconsiderate men and something much more important to her – Rhoda.

At the beginning, there was no real panic other than Sarah’s fretting, but as the minute came and the elevator remained stationary, the two girls looked at each other wondering just how long they were gonna be stuck like this. Both had, after all, other things to do outside this encounter.

Catalina’s leg restlessly moved while she was leaning on the wall. That girl simply couldn’t sit still, and there’s not a lot of space to move in an elevator.

“Can you stop that?” Sarah wasn’t so much annoyed as the bouncing leg was the only sound and it struck a nerve.

“Oh, sorry.” Catalina apologized, but both knew Catalina’s leg would return to its bounciness within the next minute.

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump – Yep, there it was. Sarah simply sighed and tried to concentrate herself away from the sound and the movement caused by Catalina’s leg. Speaking would probably help.

“So, how’s things with Rhoda?” Catalina audibly gasped – Did everyone know she’d been dating Rhoda? After all of her subterfuge and stealth and… Okay, perhaps her personal indignation at this knowledge rang hollow as she used body language to scream it to everyone in sight once Rhoda had given her blessing to disclose the relationship to some trusted friends. Still, casual talk about her relationship was not something Catalina had ever gotten practice on.

“Um, uh… Fine! Definitely fine! Yup. Everythin’s peachy-keen on the Catalina/Rhoda train!” She coupled her exclamation with a thumbs up which did absolutely nothing to convince her fellow elevator mate of the veracity of her statements.

“You don’t seem too convinced?” Sarah hesitated while asking this question – she knew very well how much Catalina was on a hair-trigger temper, and getting the only other person stuck in there with them might be a problem.

“Who are you to tell me I don’t seem to convinced, huh!?” That seemed to have struck one of Catalina’s many nerves. “What sort of JACKASS can’t see how much we love each other!?”

“Whoa there, down girl! I believe you! You just seemed to… overcompensate a bit.” Catalina looked flabbergasted and then just yelled out in frustration.

“Argh! I’m sorry! I just get flustered when people ask me questions because Rhoda and I haven’t been open about our relationship for long so I’m used to deflecting but not actually being hon-” Sarah decided to give the cat some mercy and gave her a comforting caress on the shoulder.

“It’s all right. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.” Sarah gave Catalina a warm smile. The girl wore her emotions on her sleeve and while that was adorable at times, this was not one of them. A calm Catalina was better than a raging Catalina.

“How long have we been in here, anyway?” Catalina wasn’t too sure, momentarily forgetting she could check the time on her phone. Sarah had an answer – 20 minutes. It’d not even been an hour, yet it already felt like several. Catalina’s leg went thump, Sarah looked dejected, glancing to the side to see if the panel lit up again. Each breath was taken with the resentment that whoever, if anyone, was helping them wasn’t doing it fast enough.

Catalina’s leg grew tired, and thus stopped moving. This, somehow, did not relax Sarah, who’d gotten used to the rhythmic thumping of Catalina’s leg bouncing. Sarah’s breaths were turning into painful moans of boredom while Catalina was looking even more visibly irritated at everything, enough that she stared down the elevator’s panel with murderous intent.

The cat turned to Sarah and asked. “How long now?”

Sarah blinked. “It’s been two minutes since you last asked.”

With a cry of anguish, Catalina gave a big kick to the panel. Sarah cried out “No!” but the damage was done. Yet the lights turned on, and the elevator resumed its journey.

“You mean to tell me if we just… kicked the panel… we wouldn’t have been stuck?”

Seething with rage, as the door opened, Catalina uttered the word that would end the day, for all on the floor to hear.

“JACKASSES!!!”


	3. Ride Along With Two Characters That Have Never Met In Canon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After one of Tedd's magic parties, Luke is somehow Lucy's ride home.

18 – Luke  
11 – Lucy

Driving somewhere

* * *

“How did I not know there was a dorm so close to my house?” Lucy was confused when it turned out that the most advantageous person to bring her back home after one of Tedd’s parties was not her actual girlfriend Diane, who unfortunately lived far away and had to leave early, but Luke.

Justin’s boyfriend.

Lucy hesitated in between telling him how her crew called his man a “defective” man and hiding that. She doubted that Justin painted a good picture of them, and while she was a bit unrepentant about things that had happened… what, months ago? She also knew it wasn’t exactly a great look for her to have done that.

“Haha… yeah, they built this relatively recently, and by built I mean they acquired a building to put extra dorms there. If you look, you can sometimes see how these used to be apartments that weren’t exactly taken care of very well.” Luke answered, trying to not make this awkward at all. “Most students try to transfer out when they find out they’re in that building.”

“Can’t imagine why.” Lucy didn’t exactly care for where that building was situated. If Moperville was said to have a ‘bad side of town’, that building was on its frontier.

For someone accompanying what could be construed as a minor, Luke was relatively chill. Perhaps he knew she could benchpress him for… approximately 3 sets of 15 reps, give or take. Probably more. Perhaps he simply didn’t think of it this way, but for someone who’d only recently managed to convince Diane to give up on her performative idea of boys being money machines for girls, she did not exactly respond well to altruism with no strings attached.

“Have you been with Diane long?” Luke wanted to make conversation – this wasn’t gonna be a particularly long ride, but he didn’t exactly like silence and it was quickly established they had incompatible music tastes. Plus, the only thing he had in his USB key was Queen, and Luke simply could not let a Queen song go unharmed by lacking Freddie Mercury’s range. Not exactly the most guest-friendly of car moments when faced with a not-so-complete stranger.

“No, not very. Hell, she didn’t realize she was into girls ‘til this year.” Lucy almost hesitated in stating this obvious fact that everyone in the car knew. Which was effectively Luke and her. “And to be honest… uh… neither did I?” Luke nodded at that.

“It’s not that I didn’t know I was attracted to her but I just… didn’t think it was possible, so I just ate away at myself enough that when she threw herself at me I was like ‘but I’m a girl’ like I wasn’t one to begin with and she wasn’t either.” Lucy, dressed in her best warrior princess garb, was blushing. Just reliving that moment where Diane attempted to deflect the rumors about them was a grandiose gesture, and finally reminded Lucy of why she fell in love with her to begin with. Luke noticed that Lucy was feeling a bit embarrassed with this line of questioning, and thus would dispense some gay wisdom to the person that was about a year younger as though he was far older.

“I get that. I fell in love with my best friend too, but unfortunately that didn’t pan out as well as you girls did.” Luke would have seemed distant if he wasn’t driving, but as he was keeping his eyes on the road, everything seemed fine.

“Uh… I’m sorry?” Lucy crossed her fingers together on her lap, unsure what to do with her body locked behind a safety belt.

“Nah, don’t be. He took the side of those who kept all of their homophobic slurs after I came out. Almost took a hobby of mine away, too,” Luke gripped the steering wheel a bit more aggressively. “Okay, they did take it away for a time, but something brought me back.”

“What hobby?”

Luke sheepishly grinned, knowing how much of a nerdy hobby it was, and well, nerds did not seem to be well-viewed in Lucy’s circle from what he understood.

“Magickal Gatherings.”

Lucy started to laugh gently – She didn’t exactly want to laugh at him, but the idea of nerds being gatekeepers on that kind of non-physical hobby was kind of funny to her.

“Don’t laugh, that’s how I met Justin!” Luke wasn’t sure if his liftee was laughing at him.

“I’m not laughing at you, just… nerds can suck, huh.” Lucy simply said this to be sympathetic to Luke’s former plight. Luke, however, decided to turn this conversation around to shut down this terrible path he’d been leaning them on.

“Oh, CAN they.” Luke sheepishly grinned, keeping his eyes on the road. It made his lewd comment all the more surprising.

Lucy blinked twice, looked at Luke, and immediately knew what he meant.

“Ewww! TMI!” Luke simply chuckled and respected her unstated yet clearly evident wishes to kill this conversation. Lucy beaned him on the shoulder in retaliation.

“Ow! Damn, you hit hard!” Luke, knowing better, did not append this with what often came out of men’s mouths after such a statement.

“Yeah, I’ve been lifting for a few years now. I figured if I did, maybe men wouldn’t look at me as a walking pair of boobs.” Lucy was partially lying – while the initial motivation for her to do so was indeed that, once she realized how much Diane was unconsciously crushing on Nanase, she figured that if she could get a better body than the object of Diane’s crush, maybe Diane would come to see her as a viable partner instead of just a friend to go on double-dates with.

“It sucks that happened to you, I don’t know you much but you seem like a cool girl. I dig the Xena look by the way.” Luke genuinely did – It was somewhat sensual, which even if he wasn’t interested in Lucy in a sexual manner, he could still appreciate, and it exuded power. Definitely something Lucy felt comfortable showing. “I’m a t-shirt and jeans kind of guy, but y’know, maybe I should ditch that look from time to time.”

“If you’re looking for wardrobe help, Diane and I can absolutely help you on that front.” Lucy smiled. “Oh, that’s my stop.”

“Thanks, I’ll take you up on that offer soon, by the way. Gonna make Justin speechless.”

“If you can do that, we’d appreciate it. He’s a good guy, but man does he ramble on.”

Luke nodded emphatically at that statement, and as Lucy left, he couldn’t help but think about Justin.


	4. Sometimes You Need A Stranger's Shoulder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhoda's received a phone call that causes her to cry, Ellen finds her hidden in Rhoda's own locker.

12 – Rhoda  
2 – Ellen

Just there for emotional support

* * *

In the halls of Moperville South, a faint sound of sniffles could be heard, but none could truly see where it was coming from. That would be because Rhoda had used shrinking magic and hid inside her locker. She didn’t want anyone to know she’d been crying – She felt she’d disappoint Diane and Lucy by doing so. Not that they wouldn’t understand, her pain was legitimate. However, today was not a good day for getting comforted by the people who always comforted her. Sometimes, humans just want to be left alone by those who’d naturally help. This was one of those times.

Unfortunately for her, Ellen has good hearing, and happened to pass by Rhoda’s locker. Easily identifying which locker contained the crying girl, she gave a gentle knock. This, somehow, surprised Rhoda enough to burst out, surprising Ellen and knocking the two of them flat on their butts.

“Rhoda, are you okay!?” Ellen knew she was fine, so she wanted to ask if Rhoda had suffered any physical injury from that outburst. She obviously wasn’t fine mentally.

“N-no.” Rhoda did not understand Ellen’s concern, and answered truthfully.

“I meant, are you hurt, like, on your body? You’re crying so I figured something had happened but you took a tumble there.” Ellen showed compassion, but without Rhoda opening up there was no point trying to force her to do so.

“So did you.”

‘Yeah, but I have several years of martial arts experience, routinely spar with someone with super strength and I’m possibly made from Dragon magic’ was her thought, but she figured mentioning all that in public and to someone who wasn’t exactly aware of her entire history would be completely irresponsible. “Yeah, but I’m fine.” were the words she spoke.

“Oh, okay...” Rhoda had no intention on opening up. It wasn’t so much that she was guarded – Rhoda often wore her emotions on her sleeves, but rather that she did not want to burden anyone with her emotions. She rolled into a tiny ball, looking somehow even smaller, and Ellen wondered if that was just a trick of the eye or if it was further use of Rhoda’s magic. Either way, she wrapped an arm around her. Rhoda blushed, not expecting the warmth of Ellen’s arm, yet as much as she wanted to be left alone, she simply couldn’t bring herself to reject Ellen’s comfort.

“It’s okay. If you don’t want to talk about whatever’s bothering you. I just heard you crying and wanted to at least give some measure of comfort.”

“...my grandma died.” With that, shrunk Rhoda wrapped her arms around Ellen and buried herself into the comforting girl. Ellen simply gave her an embrace, giving her light pats on the shoulder as Rhoda cried her eyes out. Were they close? Did it really matter? Rhoda needed comfort and Ellen was there.

Minutes passed, Diane and Lucy arrived, and all returned to normal. But for a moment, Rhoda felt the comfort of a not-so-stranger, and Ellen was allowed to help someone without having to beat someone up or fire a beam. And it felt good.

**Author's Note:**

> So, these are posted WEEKS AFTER the actual fic week because as it turned out I had laptop problems during the fic week. So I couldn't write. So I figured I would honor my commitment I made on a random reddit post that said I'd participate.


End file.
